Spell Charges (Item Power)
Spell Charges is a special Item Power. A Hero wielding an item with Spell Charges can cast a designated spell in combat directly through the item, using its charges rather than his own mana. It is available for Wands and Staves through Create Artifact and requires knowledge of the spell in question, though a few of the game's pre-defined items also have specific Spell Charges. An exploit enables the less-scrupulous to imbue Spell Charges for free, on any weapon, greatly expanding this Item Power's role in the game. Barring this, a spell adds a stiff 20x its base (Combat) Casting Cost for each charge when crafting. Effect Wizards in Master of Magic can craft Wands and Staves that specialize in channeling magic in a specific pattern. It is one thing to cast a spell, though, and quite another to craft an item which casts the spell through its own self-replenishing reserve of power. Creating a Charged artifact can be among the most expensive operations a Wizard pulls off in his career. This power permits a single, valid combat spell already known to the wizard to be embedded in the weapon and cast as a normal action in combat, with 1-4 charges per battle. The item instantly recharges after combat ends; Spell Charges are never permanently consumed. A total of 91 different spells from the six realms of magic could potentially become Spell Charges. Below are the various Types of Spells you get access to: * Combat Enchantments * Combat Instants * Summoning Spells * Unit Curses * Unit Enchantments This Item Power is commonly denoted with the name of the spell and a multiple showing the total number of charges per battle; e.g., High Prayer x1, or Phantom Beast x4. After all the item's charges are spent, the Hero may continue casting the spell in combat, but now spending his own casting skill as normal. Heroes without the Caster ability, as well as those who are unable to hold wands or staves in their weapon slot, can still use Spell Charges. An accessible specimen from among the pre-fab items would be the Axe of the Caster. Pure melee heroes can equip this axe and be fully-able to cast High Prayer. Full Spell List ; : Magnitude Slider Spells that prompt the Wizard to put additional power into the effect can be maximized freely. The limit is the Casting Skill currently available to the Hero. For instance, a Hero with can throw a charged spell that has a base cost of and pump an additional into it, and should virtually always do so. His own mana pool will not be tapped. The additional power will not cost him a thing. Occasionally, Heroes without the Caster ability will be able to use Spell Charges. In these cases the slider, if it appears, should not be touched. Additional power will wrap negative and decrease the strength of the spell! Caster Heroes who attempt to max the slider after their skill has already been depleted are at risk of this, as well. Enemy Spell Save Penalty Spells that make use of the "− Spell Save" attribute on Wands, Staves, and Jewelry will continue to do so when the hero casts these spells from Charges. There are only a few such spells: In the unofficial 1.40 Insecticide Patch, "− Spell Save" will also affect the following spells: Life Drain, Holy Word, Death Spell. The "− Spell Save" modifiers from items stack, so this mechanic presents a means by which the hero can hit enemies with some very dangerous, near-irresistible effects, over and over again (though at a great initial expense to the Wizard crafting his equipment). Acquisition Create Artifact The cost of crafting Spell Charges with Create Artifact is given by the following formula: Spell Charges = Combat Spell Cost * 20 * number of charges -50% if Artificer -25% if Runemaster For example the base cost of crafting Death Spell x3 would be given by : * 20 * 3 = ...which gets discounted to if the Wizard is a Runemaster, if the Wizard is an Artificer, and if the Wizard is both. The only prerequisite for Spell Charges is knowledge of the spell you wish to embed. Overland The game data files contain 250 pre-defined Items. Of these, eleven possess Spell Charges of some kind. There are three different ways by which you can acquire one of these pre-defined Items: * By winning a difficult Encounter. * By purchasing it from a Merchant, a random petitioner. * As result of a Random Event called "The Gift". Most realm-derived Item Powers cause the item to require specific (and quite irregular) Spellbook ranks before it will turn up in Treasure for a Wizard, and many of the items below have such requirements, though not on account of the Spell Charges. The table below lists the pre-defined items with Spell Charges. Known Bugs It is possible to get Spell Charges on an item for free. In version 1.31, the program fails to delete this Item Power entirely from memory when it is assigned and subsequently removed in the Create Artifact dialogue screen. This opens up a major exploit: the Spell Charges will appear on the final product even though they were not accounted for in its casting or mana value. To observe this, the following procedure may be used: # Select Wand or Staff, and then select the Spell Charges power and assign the spell and number of charges, as normal. # Click on the power again, deleting it. # Finalize your item (you can also change it to an entirely different piece of equipment other than a Wand or Staff, if you intend), go back to the overland map, and let the casting proceed. # The completed item will have the Spell Charges you deleted. Using this method, the Spell Charges property is free, and it may be assigned to any item, not only Wands and Staves. It will nevertheless function only on weapons. The item will likewise not yield any additional when smashed on the anvil. It does not count as one of the powers on an item, meaning that you can still assign up to four other powers on your creation. ;Other Bugs : * Opening a hero's Spellbook (S) will disable his and attacks thereafter for the duration of combat. This affects Fang, Shalla, Bahgtru and Gunther. * Toggling Auto (A) in combat causes the hero to spam the charges (often needlessly). Strategy Costing 20 times the mana of the governing combat spell and adding many, many turns of overland casting time to Item Crafting, a Spell Charge is prohibitively expensive unless your Wizard has Artificer / Runemaster. The temptation to make use of the exploit in 1.31 is very great. Being able to cast a string of free spells in combat can provide you with an overwhelming advantage. Among the common spells, Confusion, Phantom Warriors, Fire Elemental, Healing, and Black Sleep are useful for any hero to throw. Caster heroes have additional options. You can freely throw additional power into Charged spells, so Psionic Blast, Fire Bolt, and particularly Life Drain, which grants your caster temporary and reanimates slain units, are well-worth considering in your early-game plans. The hexes that test enemy resistance (listed in the Enemy Spell Save Penalty section) become most attractive once you can afford to stack "− Spell Save" modifiers on your hero's equipment. When you obtain a Rare or Very Rare combat spell, possibly by using one of the above spells to help clear a Lair, it may be time to reforge your hero's primary weapon to take full advantage of it. Avoiding the exploit will teach you to be more discriminate about the number of Charges you assign, the expense of the spell, and its breadth of use. The Summoning Spells tend to be the most widely-useful, as such; it does no good charging a wand with some kind of targeted spell your enemies are immune to. Category:Item Powers